


The Love She Left Behind

by Pippinpaddleopsicopolis (Barnable)



Series: Together, We Are An Ocean [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Childhood Memories, Day Two: Grief, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Misunderstandings, POV Katara (Avatar), Painting, Sibling Love, Sokka (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Water Siblings Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26363056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barnable/pseuds/Pippinpaddleopsicopolis
Summary: Katara doesn't know what Sokka does on their mother's birthday every year, and she's never tried to find out. That is, until she accidentally stumbles upon him drawing by the edge of the ocean away from the tribe, and makes one of the worst snap judgments of her life.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Series: Together, We Are An Ocean [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933663
Comments: 30
Kudos: 162





	The Love She Left Behind

Kya’s birthday wasn’t easy for anyone.

It should’ve been a cause for celebration, a day to remember all the best parts of her life. But whenever it came around, everyone was just sad. Not only her family, but the whole tribe; quietly mourning for their previous chief. Katara took it the hardest out of them all. She never meant to lash out at anyone, but every year she found herself in a terrible mood as she blamed herself for what happened. It wasn’t that she _wanted_ to be angry, she just was. She always would be.

But she never meant to lash out at anyone. She never meant to hurt them with her grief.

They had different ways of remembering Kya. Hakoda always liked to walk to the place where they’d gotten married—around a mile away from the tribe, right on the edge of the water, where the moon reflects and lights up the snow at night—and spend some time on his own. Katara took the day to practice waterbending, as it made her feel closer to her mother. Sokka… well, nobody really knew what Sokka did.

He had a habit of disappearing on their mother’s birthday. Every year since she passed, Sokka would wander off from morning until dinner. Even when he came back, he never initiated talk about Kya, just went along with it when Katara or their dad said something first. Once, Katara thought about following him, but she decided not to. Whatever he did was important to him and she didn’t want to get in the way. Not intentionally.

Katara was only practicing her bending. She hadn’t meant to stumble upon her brother, she just wanted a change of scenery. It wasn’t too far from the tribe where she found him, sitting on the edge of the water with his legs crossed and a sheet of paper on his lap. He bit down on the edge of his tongue as he slid a brush across the page, not reacting when Katara trekked through the snow towards him. She almost turned around, not wanting to interrupt, but her own heart was heavy, and she ended up taking a seat at his side.

“Hey.” Sokka barely glanced over when she spoke, his hand still gliding across his work in progress. After sitting down, Katara noticed that there were pages of crumpled paper beside him, though she couldn’t tell what was on them. Ink covered his shivering hands. “What are you drawing?”

“Nothing.” His voice was flat, his tongue still peeking out from the corner of his mouth. “I thought you’d be practicing by now.”

“I was. Then I saw you, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you?”

“Are _you_?”

“No.” Katara shook her head, looking down to her own gloved hands. She wanted to demand Sokka put his on too, but it didn’t seem like the right time to be getting on top of him about anything. As such, she decided to let it go, regardless of how cold he must’ve been. “But I’m not supposed to be. It’s a hard day. We’re allowed to be sad.”

“I’m not sad.” Somehow, Sokka actually _didn’t_ sound upset, and that made Katara almost mad. It was their mother’s birthday, and he didn’t even seem to care. He didn’t even seem to miss her. “You should go back to your training. I know it makes you feel better.”

“Yeah, like drawing random girls makes _you_ feel better? This is really how you’re spending Mom’s birthday. Dad’s reliving their favorite memories, Gran Gran is cooking us her favorite dinner, I’m doing the one thing that makes me feel connected to her, and you’re out here doodling girls. What a way to honor her memory. Great job. Maybe I’ll try drawing some hot guys too! Honestly, Sokka. Sometimes it feels like you don’t even care.”

A long several seconds passed before Sokka slowly nodded. He looked down to the paper in his lap and ripped it in half suddenly, crumpling both sides into a ball and throwing them into the snow with the rest of his discarded drafts. For a moment, Katara thought Sokka would turn and shout at her, but he didn’t. He just looked in her direction, hesitated for a long time, and spoke the words she never expected.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, brushing the snow from his hair as he rose to his feet. His blue eyes were downcast when he glanced to the water before turning back to her, his expression unreadable. “You’re right. I don’t— I didn’t love her enough. I didn’t love her like you did. You should go back to your bending. I’m just— I’m going to go help Gran Gran with the dinner. I’ll see you later.”

Katara almost went after him, even beginning to rise to her feet, but stopped. She didn’t want to fight on her mother’s birthday. The outburst wasn’t meant to be, she was just filled with emotion and regret and she took it out on someone who hadn’t deserved it. Katara sighed as she leaned forward to grab the papers her brother had left behind, mildly irritated that he’d left them there as if they weren’t harmful to the environment.

She wasn’t necessarily planning to take a closer look at what he was drawing—random women he found attractive, she’d assumed—but stopped when she grabbed one which wasn’t as crumpled as the rest. From a distance it was hard to tell, and though the ink was still too smudged to truly make out a face, the defining piece of jewelry at the bottom of the page was clear as day and Katara’s heart dropped into her stomach when she saw it.

Sokka wasn’t drawing random girls.

He was trying to remember their mother.

Instantly, any anger Katara felt towards her brother’s coping mechanism was overshadowed by guilt and regret. She rose to her feet quickly, turning around to go after him with two crumbled drawings still in her hands, but it was too late. Sokka was nowhere to be seen, probably pissed off and long gone somewhere that he wouldn’t have to talk to his jerk of a sister.

Katara scooped up the rest of the papers before heading back toward the tribe. She couldn’t believe she’d done that to him, called him on something that wasn’t even true. There was every chance Sokka hated her after what she said and even though she didn’t think he could, she knew she had to fix things. She walked quickly back to the tribe, dropping the papers at the first chance she got and going straight into Gran Gran’s home.

Given what a horrible thing she’d said to him, Katara really shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Sokka lied to her, but she was a little disappointed anyway. There was dinner cooking outside, though no one around seemed to know where Sokka was, nor had they seen him pass by. Katara sighed and thanked everyone for trying to help, only stopping when Gran Gran appeared; her brow knit in concern.

“Everything all right, dear?” she asked.

“Have you seen Sokka?” It was a last-ditch effort. No one else had seen her brother, why would Gran Gran? But she didn’t know who else to ask. “I just said something really stupid and I need to talk to him, but I don’t know where he went. He said he was coming here but clearly he was lying, so…”

“I haven’t heard from him since he took off this morning. If I were you, I’d check his workshop. He brought all those brushes and things with him, and he had to put them down somewhere.”

Katara nodded, quickly thanking her grandmother before she turned and hurried in the direction of Sokka’s workshop. There was no guarantee he’d actually be in the little igloo he’d built for his work but given that the only thing he’d left behind were the numerous crumpled papers, Gran Gran did have a good point. Though her heart was still racing, Katara chose to focus on the sound of snow crunching beneath her feet as she walked. It was easier than thinking about the guilt.

When she finally reached Sokka’s workshop, Katara hesitated before going inside. If Sokka _was_ mad at her, which she was fairly certain he was, then she didn’t know if she should go inside and risk making things worse. But she felt so awful for making such an assumption, for lashing out on him when she knew her poor mood was only due to her own overwhelming levels of grief, that she forced herself to walk inside. She was instantly met with a sight she couldn’t unsee.

“Sokka?”

He was sitting back by the wall, staring down at his feet with his legs crisscrossed in front of him. His shaking breaths were both audible and visible in the cold air, his head bowed and hiding his face. Though Katara made her presence really clear, he didn’t move when she walked in aside from shifting and turning his head further away from her. She waited a second before going over to take her seat, hoping she wasn’t overstepping any boundaries as she sat down beside her brother, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. He only sniffed.

“I’m so sorry, Sokka,” she started, her words barely louder than a whisper. “It’s been a really hard day with everything going on and I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I didn’t mean what I said. I know you care, it’s just—”

“No, you were right.” Sokka shook his head slowly, his gaze still turned away and his words catching in his throat. “I don’t care. I want to. I want to care _so bad_ but deep down I know that I don’t because I can’t even— she was my _mom_ , Katara, and I don’t even know what she looked like. I can’t— I’ve been trying for years to remember her face because I feel like it’ll somehow bring something back, but I can’t. Every time I try it’s wrong and I just— I’m sorry. I know how much she means to you and sometimes I just really wish she meant that to me too.”

“But she did. Just because you don’t remember her that well doesn’t mean you didn’t love her or that she meant any less to you than she did to me. It just means that you had to grow up too fast. We both did, and I know you felt like I took on the mother role and that’s probably a lot of why you don’t remember her because those were our most formative years, and she— she was already— I’m sorry.”

There it was. Most days, she could deal with it. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d shared the story of her mother’s death to help others overcome their struggles, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same to think about her beautiful, kind, amazing mother on her birthday and know that she could never see her again. Katara opened her mouth to try again but stopped when she felt Sokka’s hand grip around hers tightly. She squeezed back.

“I really do miss her, Katara.” His voice was quiet, shaking with each and every word. “I’m sorry I don’t really talk about it, but it’s just— it’s hard. It’s really hard, especially when _you_ talk about her because you remember all this amazing stuff about her, and I just don’t. I don’t remember and I want to remember so, _so_ badly but I can’t. I listen to your stories and Dad’s stories and I can’t picture any of it. I can’t picture her.”

“Do you want me to help you?” The offer left Katara’s lips before she could stop it, and when Sokka failed to respond, she feared it was the wrong thing to ask. She clung to his hand a little tighter, trying to pull things back to where he felt more comfortable. “You don’t have to say yes, but I know you were trying to draw her before and if you want me to, I can help you try and make something that looks a little more accurate.”

Sokka hesitated for a long moment before he finally looked up. Suddenly, Katara understood why he hadn’t done so earlier. His entire face was streaked with tears, his blue eyes severely bloodshot, and his teeth chewing lamely on his already too short thumbnail. He lowered his hand slowly, almost immediately biting down on his lip instead as he stared at her in silence. A good ten seconds passed until he nodded, another glistening tear escaping from his eye.

Though it wasn’t exactly what he requested, Katara couldn’t do anything else without a hug first, and so she pulled away from Sokka’s hand and threw her arms around his shoulders. It took a bit, but he eventually slid his arms around her too, his grasp a little too firm as he tried to reassure both his sister and himself. They stayed in the embrace for longer than they needed to, allowing each other time to think about their feelings, their mom, and everything that happened.

Eventually, Katara slid back and Sokka did too, his gaze immediately turning back to the floor. Katara gently nudged his knee, prompting him to sit up straighter, and waved her hand in a gentle motion as she bent the tears off his face. It was the best thing she could’ve done, as it turned out, because all Sokka did in response was chuckle; the tiniest smile appearing on his lips as he watched her move the drops from his face to the air and down into the snow.

“There’s more paper behind you,” Sokka mumbled, vaguely gesturing to the place he was referencing. Katara spun around to find it, not surprised in the least when she turned back to find Sokka had resumed chewing on his thumbnail. “This probably isn’t going to be very good, just so you know. I’m a pretty bad artist.”

“It’s okay.” It was. It didn’t matter if he was good at painting or not because Katara was going to help him. Even if he couldn’t see their mother on the page, she was going to make sure he could see her in his mind. “Let’s just start simple. Go for her outline first. You can use me as a reference, just make sure you get my necklace in there. It won’t look like her without it.”

Sokka nodded, hesitating before he uncapped a nearby jar of ink. He sniffed, taking a good long look at his sister as he dipped his brush into the ink and lowered it down onto the page. Katara didn’t want to move too much and disrupt his reference, but she looked down long enough to see that he’d made some serious improvements since the last time she’d seen him work. That, or he’d just tried to draw their mother so many times he gained skill in that one little area. She tried not to focus on that thought.

“I think I got it,” he said eventually, his voice still low and slightly shaking. He brushed a hand over one eye, looking away when Katara leaned forward to get a better look at the drawing. It was perfect.

“It looks great, Sokka.” For once, she actually meant it. It wasn’t just one of his goofy doodles, it was art. Real art. She fought back her own tears. The image didn’t even have a face yet, how could she possibly feel so touched by it? “Next, we’ll do her hair. It was kind of like mine, but—”

“But she didn’t have your hair loopies, and it was always frizzy in the front. I remember.”

Of course he did. Kya made so many jokes about their frizzy hair, there was no way he could forget them all. Katara smiled when Sokka glanced over at her and continued with his painting, moving slowly so as not to mess up a single stroke. He looked sad, too sad, and her own mind was filled with countless thoughts of grief and regret, so she decided to try and break the tension the only way she knew how.

“Do you remember when she first taught me how to braid hair?” she started. Almost instantly, Sokka snorted and shook his head, the smallest smile sneaking its way up his lips. “She told me I had to be careful because things could go wrong really quickly, but I didn’t think it mattered that much, and—”

“And we had to cut off half our hair because you tied such horrible knots into them,” Sokka finished. He looked over to her out of the corner of his eye, his fingers stalling for just a second before continuing their fine strokes across the page. “I remember I was so mad at you. I finally had my hair long enough to do it like Dad’s and then you messed it all up, and Mom said that it was okay because hair grows back again, and— and it was my fault for letting you do it in the first place.”

“You were just being a good brother.”

“That’s what she told me next.” His voice cracked too much on the last word, his teeth clamping down on the end of his tongue as he turned his focus back to the painting in front of him. “Sorry. I’m being so stupid right now.”

“No, you’re not.” Katara slid closer to him, moving around so she could see the art straight on. Somehow, he’d managed to capture her hair so perfectly it was almost shocking that he couldn’t remember her face. “I know you don’t like to let your guard down but it’s a hard day, Sokka. For all of us. It’s okay to be sad.”

He only nodded, not looking up as his fingers returned to dragging the brush across the page. Sokka’s hands were trembling slightly, but he was so focused on his work, so deliberate with his movements, that it didn’t seem to affect his art at all. Katara stayed silent while he added the details to their mother’s hair, waiting until he finished and turned to look at her again before she went on.

“She had our eyes,” said Katara quietly, shaking her head after the words left her mouth. “Or, we have hers, I guess. Dad’s said that enough that you probably remember it too, but… here. You can look at me for reference again if you need to.”

Sokka barely moved but shifted his gaze up to her eyes and looked between them for several long seconds before returning to his work. It was almost painful to watch him draw, to watch him reveal every inch of the person they hadn’t seen in years, but Katara couldn’t look away either. In all honesty, she hadn’t had much confidence in Sokka’s skills at first. She never thought what he created would be as perfect as what he was putting on the page right then and there, but it was.

It wasn’t hard to think of what Kya’s mouth looked like and Sokka moved onto that bit without question. Katara had to admit the likeness there was a little off, but she knew he was modeling the smile after her own and she didn’t dare say a word against it. That was the best way she could remember her mother’s smile too. Not through her own, but through Sokka’s. He didn’t know how much he resembled their mom. He probably never would.

“Did she have freckles?” The question was sudden and soft, Sokka only looking to her out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry if that’s wrong. I’m not trying to mess this up, it’s just— Dad doesn’t have them but you and I both do, so I thought maybe it was something we got from her.”

“Yeah.” Katara smiled, nudging Sokka’s shoulder and urging him to meet her gaze. He did so for barely a second, turning back to dip his brush down into the ink. “I think we did get them from her. She only had a few on her face, but she had a lot of them on her shoulders, like you do.”

He glanced down at his shoulder instinctively, despite his skin being hidden by his coat. “Can you help me with the details?”

There was no way for her to refuse. She scooted again, this time settling down right at Sokka’s side and helping him through each of the finer details. The curves of their mother’s cheekbones, the length of her eyelashes, the shape of her nose and her brow—Sokka had to stop a few times when he got overwhelmed, but Katara never said a word. She just sat quietly and gave him the time he needed to think. To remember. To _grieve_.

Because they were so deep into their work, constantly swapping bittersweet stories from their childhoods, Katara didn’t realize how much time had passed until the light from the moon replaced the light from the sun shining in the doorway. Soft steps echoed in the snow, approaching them but not quite registering in Katara’s mind past the final details Sokka was adding to their mother’s portrait.

“Kya.” The name left Hakoda’s mouth wrapped in a sheet of surprise, though the expression on his face was nothing but soft. He stared down to the picture his children were sat behind, his eyes scanning it several times over before he spoke another word. “It looks just like her.”

It did. It was a little messy and imperfect but that didn’t matter one bit. There was love in the art, care in each line, and Katara loved it more than she could express. From the look on Hakoda’s face as he knelt down beside them, he loved it too. Sokka still didn’t say a word, just staring at the painting in silence, not so much as moving when their dad wrapped an arm around each of his kids.

None of them spoke for what must’ve been several minutes. They just sat there in the cold room, wrapped in each other’s arms as they remembered the times all four of them could be there. A few tears escaped Katara’s eyes when she leaned into her dad’s strong grasp, but Sokka cried the most. Not that Katara or Hakoda said a word about it, of course. Hakoda would never judge either of them, and Katara understood that whatever he was feeling must’ve been overwhelming. He hadn’t been able to picture their mother in years and suddenly, her face—or at least, a close interpretation of it—was staring right back at him.

“You know she loved you both so much.” Another tear slid down Katara’s cheek when Hakoda spoke, squeezing their shoulders a little tighter. Sokka only sniffed and shifted toward their dad, while Katara quickly nodded. “She would be so, so proud of you.”

Katara smiled softly, but she couldn’t bring herself to say any words. He was right. Their mother may have been gone from the physical world, but her spirit was still out there somewhere, and she loved them so much. She always would. And someday, when Katara had her own daughter, she would name her after her mother and she could live again in a new life, just like in the stories Gran Gran always told.

They ended up sitting there for a few more minutes, neither Sokka nor Katara speaking but their dad occasionally saying something to try and cheer them up or remind them of their mother. Katara joined in on the stories once or twice, but Sokka just sat there and listened; his expression never changing but the occasional tear dripping from his eye and down his chin. He brushed them all away quickly, not speaking until Hakoda had already stood up to head back to Gran Gran’s and Katara rose to follow him.

“Hey.” He reached out for her wrist, stopping her from walking away. Sokka wet his lips before he spoke, biting down on them as he inhaled deeply. Finally, he met her gaze, though his bright eyes flickered and blinked more than was usual. “Thank you. I know my art’s not great, but it’s been a really long time since I could picture her and everything you said, it— it really helped me put a face to all the memories.”

“Your art was perfect, Sokka.” Katara knelt back down, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck. She held onto him tightly, sinking into his embrace when he slid his own arms around her shoulders. “It might not be exactly right but it’s so good. It looks so much like her, it really does. Sorry, I’m not trying to cry all over you, I just miss her so much.”

“It’s okay.” Sokka pulled his sister in closer, letting her listen to the gentle beating of his heart in his chest. “I miss her too.”

It would never get easier not having her mother around, but the painting they later hung above Katara’s bed made Kya’s birthday a little less bitter and a little more sweet.


End file.
